AIGA

The saying goes that “hope springs eternal.”   I suppose it does, at least until you’re fifty.

Fifty brings the realization that hope is an adolescent expectation.

Hope in what?  Hope for what?

Fifty is the watershed moment of life; the point of no return.  The Rubicon so to speak. But the crossing of this river is involuntary.  

(Involuntary unless one opts to check out before reaching fifty)  

At fifty your future is largely determined.  Cast in quickly setting concrete.  

No matter what you do between now and your death, your legacy is already more than half written.

At fifty you can’t go back and pretend that you are 25 or 30.  Maybe you could have pulled that off at forty but not at fifty. You can dye your hair but you aren’t fooling anyone.

Hitting fifty is like hitting a flooded road at 75 mph.  When it happens it changes everything.

I reached fifty years of age yesterday.

Today I am reflecting on the wreckage behind me; the destroyed relationships, hurts, anger, emotional injuries. Looking back I see the sort of barren landscape that selfish living produces.

Such reminiscence greys the horizon, and creates a fog of the present.  The future’s bright light dims to the glow of an exit sign.

Exit stage left.  Does the audience care?  Do they even know you’ve left?  Do they applaud because you’ve performed well or because you are leaving?

These questions take on new significance at fifty.

My parent's generation is at the threshold.  I care, but I don’t really.  

Perhaps I’ll care when they actually shuffle off the end of the pier. But for now I am only thinking of being fifty.

That thought consumes me.  I have no time for thinking of anything else right now.

Perhaps that is why I am who I am today.  

At fifty.